One Leg at a Time
A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Creative Writing
of
Rhodes University by
Lincky Elmé Vivier
Abstract
This collection of poems explores the boundaries between certainty and uncertainty, between the desire for meaning and the destabilisation of meaning.
The content encompasses everyday life, love and loss, and the ambiguities are reflected in the forms used, so that, for instance, the linear continuity of narrative
and the musicality of the lyric may be juxtaposed with the fragmented and imagistic leaps of the associative poem.
Contents
Family 7
The four of us, traveling 9
Letters 10
Alida 11
The detective 12
The boat 13
We do what we can 14
The World of Tomorrow 15
Snow falling 16
America 17
The first time 19
Sometimes I think of you 20
American dream 21
The truth 22
Somewhere south of Cairo 23
It was quiet for a while 24
Do you also think of me 25
Not for everything 26
Notes & sketches 27
On the plane to Joburg 29
The professor 30
Hunting 31
The house 32
Climbing the Sentinel 33
Wilderness 34
Likkewaan 35
Still life with paper 36
Pencil sketch 37 Cycle 38 Lessons 39 Home 41 In between it all 43 Enough 44 Marriage 45 Measure 46 Space-time 47
Of course the key is never in the door 48
Throwing lavender 49
Marriage - a variation 50
After your chemo 51
Not springtime yet 52
On our way to the fever tree 53
Verassing 54
The river 55
Slowly 56
Waking 57
9 The four of us, traveling
Together in the family car, each one was somehow bound to look out her window, passing discretely
those fragments of landscape. Funny how, when the world is vast or empty, how much more
slowly and clearly it all passes by. And when it's full, of trees for instance, how well it makes a fence
that ripples like water
across the surface of everything so that you don't know where to look. We were never allowed to listen to music on headphones in the car; my father considered it rude; I do too. So there we were, in our silence being just the four of us, traveling.
10 Letters
We placed our letters, carefully folded in hope on the windowsill each night
to find the way across gardens and dreams and to reach the fairies.
They always wrote back in tiny curled letters and sometimes with invisible ink.
Our father would lightly burn the paper to make the words appear.
One morning all the couches were turned upside down, the pillows flung across the room.
The fairies wrote to apologise.
Those naughty dwarves were out of control.
To make up for the mess they left us lollipop candies in pink and green icing. I bought one the other day at the local grocery store. It was old and dry and crumbled between my fingers.
11 Alida
every day she takes six pills some are small and white and round others are green or brown or oval
she fills the compartments starting with M for Monday
one of each per day until the box is filled but her hands are unsteady
the box overturns
the pills spill across the carpet my sister and I pick them up
and watch as she feels a tiny pill
with her pink-gloved fingers rolls it back and forth
feeling searching but the light is too faint
grandma, you should be wearing your glasses I don't need them
12 The detective
through my tears I watch him in his suit and straight back asking my mother questions
he looks just like one of those detectives in the movies not the cool mel-gibson-lethal-weapon type
more that clean-cut I'm-in-charge I'm-in-control type why is he here his timing seems all wrong
whose guilt is he trying to settle inside this stuffy room too crowded with its three plastic chairs
13 The boat
I always loved Florida for its skies. The open blue quickly turning
into a summer storm.
We used to chase the lightning all the way to the coast. And it does remind me of when I was in the boat. Always
back to the boat.
Always the grey sun and heavy dust and sinking into water. And while the memories keep coming and going
the horizon breaks
until it's the landscape that's moving and the boat is still.
14 We do what we can
people say we look alike and we do we think over the thing as it is where the river swells
flooding the ribcage
small pieces of cloth like corners of bunting get caught in the eddies
only the surface of things is easy the brown leather couch
the dying grass
the hammock we fight about and take inside
when it rains and the thing burns
muddled noises amplify and we do what we can
15 The World of Tomorrow
She just finds herself knife in hand. Why are you telling me this? She's sorry.
It slipped. Ag, Sis.
Remember our first trip to Disney World?
We sat wide-eyed in the rotating ride of 'The World of Tomorrow' while a purple creature showed us a future
where families connect through a screen. And here we are
holding up our laptops
to walk each other through our homes. What more can we do?
16 Snow falling
the artist said to keep the eye on the person not the canvas then he held up a small fist
and with a black-stained thumb started smudging the air
it snowed yesterday it never does that here
I phoned to tell you but you weren’t there I stood outside
the snow melting in my hair
not enough that I could cry not enough to feel warm inside one must capture the likeness he said that essence of the person
then he stopped explaining said he could only show what he meant then he traced the cheek the jaw
the slightly protruding chin I could still see the grey sky I wanted to be outside
I wanted to be
not standing there looking through
the likeness of the dark shadow drawn under the eyes I wanted
with the wind in my face
19 The first time
The first time I heard the word 'disconcerting' there was a fat lady on the wall
fondling herself in 3-D. I remember 'oblivion' too. I was in love. He was black. The way she twirled those curls. Maybe I should've taken up botany. Or haberdashery.
I could've stitched the world in pastels. I tried ballet but my points
couldn't keep the blood in.
Red was never my favourite colour anyway.
Let's park it, you say, as if we're just out for a joyride and the dryness in our throats
is nothing more than thirst. My god the world is flat.
We find the desert and all we want to do is cruise and booze. Admire the view.
Until we lose the car and the straight line spirals out of the rendezvous. Where the hell
did all this sand come from?
Continental drift. Inter-species erotica. I know I told you ticks don't jump but check your crevices anyway.
20 Sometimes I think of you
you didn't kiss me on our first date even though I wanted you to
in the dim light coming through the door
your unassuming smile and the way you didn't lean straight talking with your hands
about fucking Bush and Cheney and the war you were so tall
I didn't mind the way the dishes piled up and where we were
sitting in the window smoking talking shit with Pat going off about Tiananmen Square when it was still new I loved your smell you took me home to meet your mother and played Big L on repeat
that was before Benji found God but even then he was beautiful
sitting at her dresser his large brown eyes soft and round as he divided our lines I stopped swimming in the ocean then and somewhere we moved in together somewhere I kissed someone else
and somewhere there was Henry just Henry stinging our brains
and your mother phoned
she sold the house on her way to California all the furniture strung out and empty
21 American dream
we'd walk down the one side and back on the other
three blocks that could sometimes take the whole day
and the halfway house
that grey and dilapidated three-storey just stood there
while we passed its empty mailboxes on the other side
the Hare Krishnas offered curry rice on Tuesdays on the lawn
and played their whiny music
sometimes I wouldn't even change my clothes for days I wouldn't care
except for the politics
that burned through all our talk we'd sit in the doorway
watching a hurricane tear down the lights and leaving us
without power for days and what was his name again
that guy who sold crack from his wheelchair who got stuck on the rocks
leading to our backdoor
still we'd walk down the one side and know we'd never end up there staring out windows
22 The truth
The sun spreads naked across the porch. She knows what she wants. She knows you're going to give it to her.
She's one of those with the pink pouty lips. So you shift your chair into the corner for shade. But the truth is, you want it too,
just on your own terms. You can get her drunk one cocktail at a time.
Or slip her something to make her more comfortable. So you wait it out. Wait for her to slump against the wall, words slurring as she turns
from white morning light to yellow to red. In the dark you make your move.
And it's okay. She wanted it. Asked for it. Teased you into your corner all day. What do words mean anyway.
What to believe when her mouth says no yet her lips scream wet.
23 Somewhere south of Cairo
Somewhere south of Cairo she takes a dark-haired lover. She keeps him
in her room during breakfast. She eats slowly.
She smokes Pieter Stuyvesant at the foot of the temple and in the mouth of the tomb. She drinks whiskey on the rocks. Hides letters in her suitcase. Somewhere between the sand
and prayers, her pink dress disappears. She is luminous with sea-passion. She stops counting stairs.
At midnight she wanders the streets of Luxor. A hundred pairs of red eyes
protect the children of the dust. She slinks in and out of doorways. A wedding crowds the air with laughter. Somewhere south of Cairo
she flies towards the glass.
She begs for the masks of the gods. Carries their voices on a shaky tray. Steam drags behind her.
24 It was quiet for a while
Heathrow airport the last leg home
the last ten hours of lank and piss and lounge left lonely in Brussels in a hotel room
last bottle of wine
last thin man under his blanket pulling his thing stumbling eventually down spinning earth towards sleep and home
it was quiet for a while
next to that canal outside of Amsterdam lying on the cool grass
listening to stories about Oman kept forgetting what to look for
found the bathroom floor and where she left the letters too many carpets climbing up the walls
she was just too fucking beautiful blonde and Philadelphian
too cool with her postcards smokes and shades what happens when you soak the spoon too long
you find something feet maps trains funny something's funny until you get stuck in France
with him and his carpet bag and leather skin and his ticket coming too what the guidebooks never tell you -
how to break promises to strangers in lonely dark tunnels how to eat mussels in Italian
how to tan fresh tits
how to choke on cock at high altitude
how to appreciate royal gardens inside their yellow walls and all the pissed-up pissed-on streets
how to take pineapple off a stranger's knife the juices dripping down her fingers licking up talk of dreams puzzles the long walk home
25 Do you also think of me
the last i heard from you
you wrote on my facebook wall
CEE CEE GOT SHOT IN THE FACE. and what about the boy?
him and the other one they found at the bottom of the pool?
could it have been love if i don't even remember the size of your syringe? no time for infinite jest.
so you found me in the bathroom and then we watched the bats come out behind the tanning salon.
we thought we were so cosmopolitan. but i didn't fucking run away.
you just got lost in the mirage of my real. do you also think of me
26 Not for everything
you can blame the drugs but not for everything everything didn’t make sense like now
repeat after me i love you
you don’t have to mean it just for me
me and you we were really something
but something doesn’t add up here you can use my spoon but not for everything
29 On the plane to Joburg
The woman next to me asks if I'm a writer; she sees me putting little words in my notebook, says she's been writing her whole life.
Every day she records
what she and her husband do. Eventually when one of them 'goes', the other will be able to read back and remember how they used to be. And whenever her friends complain about how the weather's changed -
that winter's never been so cold or summer so hot - she goes back through her notebooks from earlier years, then tells her friends, 'No,
30 The professor
I've come to ask about Foucault about how power is
everywhere he sits in his office
completely still
elbows on the desk I stare
down at my knees search the walls
try to look anywhere but into those hands those fingers
tense and together
cupped over his eyes in his darkness he sits
lips releasing words one by one
31 Hunting
The annual family hunting trip is for men only.
My cousin and I have to beg to go, offering our domestic services to our uncles and cousins. The sun is already at our backs as my cousin begins breakfast. I only do what I must -
handing her spices, milk as she scrambles the eggs, filling and refilling the toaster, setting the table, remembering forks go on the left.
All morning I imagine
spending hours alone and on foot, listening, waiting for a rustle far in the underbrush,
a crunch of leaves, the crack of a twig. The weight of the rifle slips in my sweaty palm. I imagine the eye must tune in to the veld, settling in
to the shades of orange and brown; all reflexes sharp
enough to deflect
the glare of sun. There, behind the sweet thorn,
a shift in the shadows.
At the breakfast table an uncle explains how to tell the female buck from the male. Later he hands me his plate; asks me to butter his toast. And I wonder if I could do it - to find the neck
32 The house
the house hears
like an elephant feels vibrations
through the ground man coming
from the stoep his tracks
in sand
through the living room his life
measured in the sway of the floorboards the house takes the man
like a shadow leaning into the corridor
into the heart where the wind blows
sand and salt
33 Climbing the Sentinel
the day unravels
white clouds rolling up Drakensberg basalt the northern face
Ntabamnyama The Black One the One that reaches into the heavens
to swallow the stars for a day the One that indulges us ascending its corners and hidden caves
flailing at flowers on the other side praying for something
34 Wilderness
the warm August morning holds me in her breath
I see no one but birds and snakes here and there a skull bone I try to stop worrying
about rhythm to simply walk feel the solitude of the steenbok his tiny body kicking sand over dung what story is this where I pass outside the lines of faded maps far beneath the ribbon of stars
I dissolve into water shade food light without you
no longer has meaning in my pockets
35 Likkewaan
Again I take the single track - a lopsided loop that rises and dips over the back of the city.
Again I stumble on the steep with winter waiting in the bend. Once, I came upon a likkewaan.
The afternoon sun slanted across his scaled black tail. We sized each other up, eye to dragon-eye
while the leaves between us fell into the shade.
36 Still life with paper
behind three stacks of paper dark green leaves stretch out over the sides of the orange pot some of the papers are also twisted sideways reaching out
their corners almost touching the others beyond the window
birds and cars swim endlessly
in the noise of city dawn squealing brakes i pull the blinds up for extra light
the paper stacks throw shadows over the plant
37 Pencil sketch
I imagine your house in lines
and semi-arches for doorways two bedrooms
no stairs except maybe to the front door I imagine a fireplace there
across from the kitchen the hallway
opening
leading to the counter some windows here and there
some furniture just the big stuff a couch
a bed a desk
and shelves and shelves of books
I imagine you
standing in the kitchen or maybe sitting at the desk where a single lamp colours everything yellow
38 Cycle
the days of the week pile up in the kitchen days of dark and light and colour
coalescing into still wet or dry
I don't want it so loaded (either hot or cold) I don't want fuzzy (which takes all day) what I want is economy (all desire is) scrounging through pockets
39 Lessons
I sat in a wooden rocker on the porch.
I was on my third spritzer and it wasn't even lunchtime. What did he mean when he said that? I listened to the waves.
Every once in a while I heard a seagull, or a car driving past behind the house. Would the salt in the air affect a wooden rocking chair?
I don't know a thing about how wood ages. I don't recognise the tune coming through the window. And just like that, it's gone. It was a dreary Saturday morning and I was on my fourth spritzer. What did he mean? When was lunch? My stomach was growling and the waves, well, they were still there.
We'd just moved in; I always wanted a house with a deck by the sea so that I could write my magnum opus. Oh never mind.
I was sitting in the wooden rocker on the porch.
I’d just finished my fifth spritzer when the kids ran out the house screaming at one another about who touched who first
and who stepped onto whose side of the bedroom first and who was going to tell on who first and
should I teach my children not to tell on one another? Would that be a good lesson? Must everything be a lesson? Lesson one: how to properly mix wine and soda water. Lesson two: how to stay on your side of the line. Three: how to let your mind go and find inspiration even in a cold room, too cold for breathing and where you should maybe not lean against the walls.
Lesson four: how to walk in high heels through the veld.
Lesson five: when to realise it's time to stop all this and take up the ukulele. Six: how to spell ukulele.
Seven: how to read your audience - which would be useful for everything from relationships to spelling bees.
Lesson eight: how to know when you're overdoing it. I think I'm overdoing it. Nine: to bring less paper next time
then you'll be forced to stop naturally. I sat in a wooden rocker on the porch.
43 In between it all
I've only ever taken trains away from home. There's hope in the places where I don't belong - in small gardens that hug warm houses, in streets that curve and curl like smoke.
We think we move of our own volition yet the landscape pulls me like fingers through an endless field of yellow grass. Among the floating villages of Ha Long Bay, a woman rows her shop from house to house. And once a year the dogs leap off their decks and swim ashore to mate.
I've only ever loved you once
but in between those limestone cliffs and now that might be all I've ever done.
44 Enough
The house was full of noise last night while you were gone. The world flowed like water
in and out of the sliding glass door. In bed I was the only one.
In this city of malls
there are simply too many
empty spaces to park one's heart. What is enough.
Coming home at 3 a.m. A kiss on the eye. A hand stretched across the sheets slipping comfortably under a breast.
45 Marriage
this bed is too big
the sheet can't even reach the corners where everything is pulled tightly together and where you sit putting on your socks while the sun stretches across your back and I on the other side
still wrapped in the dark dream of the time
we had a single mattress on the floor and we didn't bother with the corners
46 Measure
I rub the soil before I pour can't seem to get it right it's always either
too little or too much
and though I've read all the books about seasons and spaces
and how to pretend
still everything dies according to its own misunderstood reasons
leaf-lips parched and strained or drowning secretly rotting in the roots all the elephant ears
the succulents and even him one day thriving nourished in me
the next day choking on too little
47 Space-time
It’s Tuesday morning 8 a.m.
I draw a spaceship on the blackboard in Louw Hall, it’s just an oval but I don’t mind
I draw a ball inside it
and diagonal lines to show it bouncing up and down and forward in space as the ship flies at the speed of light
I count the seconds out loud - one two - and measure the distance with chalk
to explain how time dilates and space contracts.
My chalk crumbles as I press too hard, a hand goes up to ask how it can be that we don't ever notice.
Well we're always moving, you see, and we're simply too small
but how elegantly true it is that we may never know for sure. I make more scratches on the board,
call it a collapsing wave and watch uncertainty sink in, and I'm still revelling in it an hour later
as I order a latte from Coffee Buzz
and I'm making my way through the crowded space when you call
I head straight to the doctor’s and you're there looking at tiny black dots on a screen
48 Of course the key is never in the door it comes at night
as a man wearing nothing but blue pants and latex gloves
I'm in my childhood house in Newcastle where I always ran to bed
because I was afraid of the dark
I count his steps coming down the hall barbed wire rolls out behind him I hear the whimpering of dogs
he grips the handle watches
with his blue eye through the hole when he comes inside
it's in an empty house with many rooms pools covered in thick red rubber I hold my breath and half wake up
yet something stirs
in the feel of plastic sheets beneath my feet I wait for the fingers
let myself bend
49 Throwing lavender
pure white
day upon us long as her lace trailing into the chapel
how vrolik (or is it vroulik)
what we mean her to be her body
stiff beneath
the hidden boning of her dress her steps quick and light between the hard benches and the sun burns
slowly through the ancient story love is three mix sand throw salt protect us from our contradictions
he and I
throwing lavender into her hair
50 Marriage - a variation
our fire is dying
you head to the woods for more kindling while I watch the orange flames
simmer into smoke sip my wine
thinking
51 After your chemo
we're running the koppie
and you're struggling to breathe struggling to keep up
it's making me angry so I keep pushing up and up each step getting shorter
neither of us saying a word we just keep going
back to the orange dust and dusk chasing us through the familiar path
over the bridge then left
across the valley and further up until everything slowly settles into night
52 Not springtime yet
this morning on the porch I hold in icy hands
the still objects of my world the coffee cup the phone the pen
the wind catches the backs of my calves and deep inside
my heart hibernates
while beneath the soil things are growing spring is coming
and the bees have stopped dying on the lawn
53 On our way to the fever tree
the river splits
into a thousand threads unravelling
slipping over soft earth and hard
the way you talk while you look away I cannot hear
the air too thick with thorns and growing with each breath turn back to me
please please turn back and you do
smiling
as if we’re safe inside a secret swinging in the summer heat
54 Verassing
Before the sun comes up I pray it won't. For days now this is my wish.
Old shadows guard the ground where the entirety of loneliness hides beneath a bush.
When I receive the mail I mistake the word verassing with verrassing.
My language of birth so far from my thought still breaks me at my core. The hiss of water
dripping into fire.
55 The river
I enter the river with awkward feet.
The water is cold and deep and wraps around everything. I am in it.
There is no other way to be. If I believe hard enough I can breathe.
I can reach your mouth. I can flow out to sea. The sky is open water.
The heart is thick black water. I am leaking.
The edges of earth are leaking. The river is leaking
56 Slowly
the silver hair begins to fall i know i should say slowly i know slowly
i know what those fingers want slipping over my abdomen
my belly the sky on its whitest day i slip out of myself
one leg at a time the silver hair begins to fall and slowly
the sky those fingers
57 Waking
at the bottom of it all are the sheets
caught around my legs a vague sense of the room the rain outside
breathing in the dark
58 Glossary
likkewaan: monitor lizard, iguana (Likkewaan, p. 28) verassing: cremation (Verassing, p. 45)
verrassing: surprise (Verassing, p. 45) vrolik: cheerful (Throwing lavender, p. 40)
